Week Commencing 13th September 2021 - Lindfield.

Firstly, apologies this blog post is a little late in reaching you.

The focus for the week was Emotions and we really enjoyed exploring the many different ways we can feel inside.

We have been learning a new song about feelings – ask and we might sing it for you.

There is a video on our Instagram page of the children singing the song, its @theacornsussex

Self-regulation involves children’s developing ability to regulate their own emotions, thoughts and behaviours to enable them to act in a positive way towards an end goal.

At Acorns we encourage the children to talk about their emotions and the emotions of their peers and teachers.

We know that it is ok to feel sad sometimes, or angry or to be excited or nervous.

Co-regulation is when we as adults help the children to work through their emotions.

The following text is taken from Birth to Five Matters

Researchers have identified three basic strategies for co-regulation.

• Positive Relationships – Provide a warm, responsive relationship where children feel respected, comforted, and supported in times of stress, and confident that they are cared for at all times.

• Enabling Environments – Create an environment that makes self-regulation manageable, structured in a predictable way that is physically and emotionally safe for children to explore and take risks without unnecessary stressors.

• Learning and Development – Teach self-regulation skills through modelling, suggesting strategies, providing frequent opportunities to practice, and scaffolding to support children to use self-regulation skills.

This week we enjoyed reading ‘The colour monster’ by Anna Llenas.

In the book the adorable little monster was feeling a bit muddled up and confused with lots of emotions running around.

With a little help, the monster was able to sort the coloured emotions into jars and label them.

When the monster was finished, he felt much better for being able to identify his emotions.

We wanted to make our very own colour monsters and the children used brightly coloured paint to decorate them.

We each made one and have stuck them into our Acorns books.

We spoke about how we felt and some of the children gave examples of times they have felt happy, sad, scared, nervous, excited, loved …

We worked as a team in the garden to create some large colour monsters for our door display.

It was such a lovely activity, all the children were encouraged to join in.

Teamwork is dream work!

The monsters are now hanging up on one of our doors, surrounded by emotion cards which we look at regularly.

The clean up was fun afterwards too.

Jack and Jude mixed the left over paint in the tray to create this delightful brown sludge.

They had a brilliant time.

We added bubbly soap and water to the tray and all helped to clean it afterwards, ready for its next use.

We played some board games which also helped us to identify how people feel. It was a lovely activity for the children to play in small groups and they chatted to each other freely about emotions.

In the game they had to match the cards to the boards.

“That girl looks sad, maybe she misses her mummy?”

“I think she fell over, I feel sad when I hurt myself.”

We made some lavender scented play dough to see if it helped us to feel calm and relaxed.

It filled the Acorns with the lovely scent. Mrs Irwin grows lavender in her garden - do you ?

Leo wasn't so sure about the smell ...

"It smells like egg."

It was super soft and squishy.

We enjoyed using our hands as tools to roll out the dough into different shapes, exploring how it became easier to roll as it warmed from the heat of our hands.

We had lots of fun in the garden this week too - We are making the most of the dry weather and spending as much time outside as we can.

Here is a selection of photos.

Some children brought in some goodies from home to share this week too.

We had home grown cucumbers and pears.

Thank You for sharing with us.

We hope that you have enjoyed reading about our busy week at The Acorns and if you are interested in learning any more about self regulation I can recommend doing a google search for Dr Mine Conkbayir. She also has some brilliant vides on YouTube.

Our next focus is on our homes and we would love you to share some photos of where you live with us.

Its also National Recycling Week, please bring in any junk you have at home for our junk trunk.

We hope to be able to make some box model houses and maybe even some bug houses for the garden.

Thank you for reading.

Mrs Franks.